Postmodern Literature
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post– World War II literature (relying heavily, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature. However, unifying features often coincide with Jean-François Lyotard's concept of the "metanarrative" and "little narrative", Jacques Derrida's concept of "play", and Jean Baudrillard's "simulacra." For example, instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern author eschews, often playfully, the possibility of meaning, and the postmodern novel is often a parody of this quest. This distrust of totalizing mechanisms extends even to the author and his own self-awareness; thus postmodern writers often celebrate chance over craft and employ metafiction to undermine the author's "univocation" (the existence of narrative primacy within a text, the presence of a single all-powerful storytelling authority). The distinction between high and low culture is also attacked with the employment of pastiche, the combination of multiple cultural elements including subjects and genres not previously deemed fit for literature.

Background
Notable influences Postmodernist writers often point to early novels and story collections as inspiration for their experiments with narrative and structure: Don Quixote, 1001 Arabian Nights, The Decameron, and Candide, among many others. In the English language, Laurence Sterne's 1759 novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, with its heavy emphasis on parody and narrative experimentation, is often cited as an early influence on postmodernism. There were many 19th century examples of attacks on Enlightenment concepts, parody, and playfulness in literature, including Lord Byron's satire, especially Don Juan; Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus; Alfred Jarry's ribald

and attacked the central role of the artist.190
Ramen Sharma and Dr.[clarification needed] Tristan Tzara claimed in "How to Make a Dadaist Poem" that to create a Dadaist poem one had only to put random words in a hat and pull them out one by one. continued experimentations with chance and parody while celebrating the flow of the subconscious mind. although he started writing in the 1920s. a problem that must be solved. however. and the German playwright and theorist Bertolt Brecht. for example). S.and character-construction. turning from external reality to examine inner states of consciousness. In character development. Playwrights who worked in the late 19th and early 20th century whose thought and work would serve as an influence on the aesthetic of postmodernism include Swedish dramatist August Strindberg. the Italian author Luigi Pirandello. parody. the work of Isidore Ducasse. which developed from Dadaism. specifically collages using elements from advertisement or illustrations from popular novels (the collages of Max Ernst. Preety Chaudhary
Ubu parodies and his invention of 'Pataphysics. suggested that automatism and the description of dreams should play a greater role in the creation of literature. Eliot.[1]
. but with postmodernism playfulness becomes central and the actual achievement of order and meaning becomes unlikely. André Breton. He is occasionally listed as a postmodernist. "these fragments I have shored against my ruins". The poem is fragmentary and employs pastiche like much postmodern literature. and the only recourse against "ruin" is to play within the chaos. but the speaker in The Waste Land says. Artists associated with Surrealism. Postmodernists.[1] Comparisons with modernist literature Both modern and postmodern literature represent a break from 19th century realism. for example) and they may seem very similar to postmodern works. artists associated with Dadaism celebrated chance. both modern and postmodern literature explore fragmentariness in narrative. an important direct influence on many postmodernist fiction writers. both modern and postmodern literature explore subjectivism. Arthur Rimbaud. The Waste Land is often cited as a means of distinguishing modern and postmodern literature. and the artist is often cited as the one to solve it. In the 1910s. The influence of his experiments with metafiction and magic realism was not fully realized in the Anglo-American world until the postmodern period. Foucault also uses examples from Jorge Luis Borges. playfulness. In addition. often demonstrate that this chaos is insurmountable. Modernist literature sees fragmentation and extreme subjectivity as an existential crisis. Surrealist René Magritte's experiments with signification are used as examples by Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Playfulness is present in many modernist works (Joyce's Finnegans Wake or Virginia Woolf's Orlando. or explorative poems like The Waste Land by T. Lewis Carroll's playful experiments with signification. or Freudian internal conflict. in many cases drawing on modernist examples in the "stream of consciousness" styles of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. Another way Dadaism influenced postmodern literature was in the development of collage. Oscar Wilde. He used automatism to create his novel Nadja and used photographs to replace description as a parody of the overly-descriptive novelists he often criticized. the founder of Surrealism. the artist is impotent.

These developments are occasionally collectively labeled "postmodern". Joyce. the Surrealists. The plays of the Theatre of the Absurd parallel postmodern fiction in many ways. For others the beginning is marked by moments in critical theory: Jacques Derrida's "Structure. the first publication of Howl in 1956 or of Naked Lunch in 1959. The prefix "post". Beckett had a
. no definite dates exist for the rise and fall of postmodernism's popularity. one of the exemplars of modernism. Jorge Luis Borges. however. does not necessarily imply a new era. and Play" lecture in 1966 or as late as Ihab Hassan's usage in The Dismemberment of Orpheus in 1971. Brian McHale details his main thesis on this shift. and Magic Realism) have significant similarities. more commonly. The work of Samuel Beckett is often seen as marking the shift from modernism to postmodernism in literature. The work of Jarry. For example. For example. 1941. Antonin Artaud. He had close ties with modernism because of his friendship with James Joyce. his work helped shape the development of literature away from modernism. several post-war developments in literature (such as the Theatre of the Absurd.[5] Post-war developments and transition figures Though postmodernist literature does not refer to everything written in the postmodern period. and the rise of the personal computer (Cyberpunk fiction and Hypertext fiction). although many postmodern works have developed out of modernism. it could also indicate a reaction against modernism in the wake of the Second World War (with its disrespect for human rights. postcolonialism (Postcolonial literature). the Holocaust.[2][3][4] Some further argue that the beginning of postmodern literature could be marked by significant publications or literary events. Rather. and Japanese American internment). the first performance of Waiting for Godot in 1953. celebrated the possibility of language. the Beat Generation. through the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. the bombing of Dresden. Sign. however. he related it to Albert Camus's concept of the absurd. It could also imply a reaction to significant post-war events: the beginning of the Cold War. the year in which Irish novelist James Joyce and English novelist Virginia Woolf both died. just confirmed in the Geneva Convention. William S. The term "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by Martin Esslin to describe a tendency in theatre in the 1950s. the civil rights movement in the United States. Luigi Pirandello and so on also influenced the work of playwrights from the Theatre of the Absurd. modernism is characterised by an epistemological dominant while postmodernism works are primarily concerned with questions of ontology. the fire-bombing of Tokyo. is sometimes used as a rough boundary for postmodernism's start. Burroughs. some mark the beginning of postmodernism with the first publication of John Hawkes' The Cannibal in 1949.Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern Literature
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Shift to postmodernism As with all stylistic eras. some key figures (Samuel Beckett. The Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco is essentially a series of clichés taken from a language textbook. One of the most important figures to be categorized as both Absurdist and Postmodern is Samuel Beckett. Julio Cortázar and Gabriel García Márquez) are cited as significant contributors to the postmodern aesthetic.

references to these writers as "postmodernists" still appear and many writers associated with this group (John Ashbery. it employs pastiche to fold in elements from popular genres such as detective fiction and science fiction. in order to escape the shadow of Joyce. breaks down the barriers between drama. for the creation of the "cut-up" technique. "Beat Generation" is often used more broadly to refer to several groups of post-war American writers from the Black Mountain poets. and. the San Francisco Renaissance. Though the technique has its roots in traditional
.. As Hans-Peter Wagner says... One writer associated with the Beat Generation who appears most often on lists of postmodern writers is William S. and poetry. Though this is now a less common usage of "postmodern".] Beckett's last text published during his lifetime. These writers have occasionally also been referred to as the "Postmoderns" (see especially references by Charles Olson and the Grove anthologies edited by Donald Allen).. Stirrings Still (1988). paradox. and psychologically explained characters. His later work. likewise.[. friends Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg edited the book guided by chance. regular time sequence. Burroughs."[6] "The Beat Generation" is a name coined by Jack Kerouac for the disaffected youth of America during the materialistic 1950s. Preety Chaudhary
revelation in 1945 that. it's full of parody. Richard Brautigan.] He was definitely one of the fathers of the postmodern movement in fiction which has continued undermining the ideas of logical coherence in narration. Gilbert Sorrentino. to make the best of what they have. a technique (similar to Tzara's "Dadaist Poem") in which words and phrases are cut from a newspaper or other publication and rearranged to form a new message. and so on. and the rubrication of literature in genres) Beckett's experiments with narrative form and with the disintegration of narration and character in fiction and drama won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. along with Brion Gysin. this is considered by some the first truly postmodern novel because it is fragmentary. formal plot. with no central narrative arc.192
Ramen Sharma and Dr. and so on) appear often on lists of postmodern writers. reliable consciousness. Magic Realism is a technique popular among Latin American writers (and can also be considered its own genre) in which supernatural elements are treated as mundane (a famous example being the practical-minded and ultimately dismissive treatment of an apparently angelic figure in Gabriel García Márquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"). "Mostly concerned with what he saw as impossibilities in fiction (identity of characters. fiction. and playfulness. featured characters stuck in inescapable situations attempting impotently to communicate whose only recourse is to play. according to some accounts. Burroughs published Naked Lunch in Paris in 1959 and in America in 1961. He is also noted. multi-novel epic called the Duluoz Legend in the mold of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. he must focus on the poverty of language and man as a failure. Kerouac developed ideas of automatism into what he called "spontaneous prose" to create a maximalistic. the reliability of language itself. This is the technique he used to create novels such as Nova Express and The Ticket That Exploded. with texts of the collection being almost entirely composed of echoes and reiterations of his previous work [. His works published after 1969 are mostly meta-literary attempts that must be read in light of his own theories and previous works and the attempt to deconstruct literary forms and genres. the New York School.

is not without its problems. The Crying of Lot 49. In fact. Along with Beckett and Borges. like Beckett and Borges. Julio Cortázar etc. several novelists later to be labeled postmodern were first collectively labeled black humorists: John Barth. Finding it anachronistic. see Brian McHale. for example. A good example of postmodern irony and black humor is found in the stories of Donald Barthelme. that much of it can be taken as tongue-in-cheek. his later work (specifically Pale Fire in 1962 and Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle in 1969) are more clearly postmodern. Thomas Pynchon in particular provides prime examples of playfulness. the way Heller. playfulness. and people connected to the children in one class. modernismo and posmodernismo refer to early 20th-century literary movements that have no direct relationship to modernism and postmodernism in English. and Pynchon address the events of World War II. In Spanish-speaking Latin America. William Gaddis. animals. a commonly cited transitional figure is Vladimir Nabokov.) are sometimes listed as postmodernists.Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern Literature
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storytelling.[1][10][11]
. 1941 in English). These are not used by all postmodernists. This irony. metafiction and pastiche are often used for irony. For example. it was a center piece of the Latin American "boom". Some of the major figures of the "Boom" and practitioners of Magic Realism (Gabriel García Márquez. however. within a serious context. and the narrative is structured around a long series of similar ironies. is about the ironic death of plants.[7] Common themes and techniques All of these themes and techniques are often used together. Irony. This labeling. while the novel as a whole has a serious subject and a complex structure. Bruce Jay Friedman. a movement coterminous with postmodernism. black humor Linda Hutcheon claimed postmodern fiction as a whole could be characterized by the ironic quote marks. Though his most famous novel. "The School". for example. It's common for postmodernists to treat serious subjects in a playful and humorous way: for example. nor is this an exclusive list of features. Though the idea of employing these in literature did not start with the postmodernists (the modernists were often playful and ironic). along with black humor and the general concept of "play" (related to Derrida's concept or the ideas advocated by Roland Barthes in The Pleasure of the Text) are among the most recognizable aspects of postmodernism. Octavio Paz has argued that postmodernism is an imported grand récit that is incompatible with the cultural production of Latin America. Nabokov started publishing before the beginning of postmodernity (1926 in Russian. they became central features in many postmodern works. contains characters named Mike Fallopian and Stanley Koteks and a radio station called KCUF. but the inexplicable repetition of death is treated only as a joke and the narrator remains emotionally distant throughout. could be considered a modernist or a postmodernist novel. often including silly wordplay. The central concept of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is the irony of the now-idiomatic "catch-22". Vonnegut. Joseph Heller. Lolita (1955). Kurt Vonnegut. etc.

Margaret Atwood uses science fiction and fairy tales. pop culture references. In Postmodernist literature this can be an homage to or a parody of past styles. It can be a combination of multiple genres to create a unique narrative or to comment on situations in postmodernity: for example. and Borges. Another
. for example Kathy Acker's novel Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream. much of the focus in the study of postmodern literature is on intertextuality: the relationship between one text (a novel for example) and another or one text within the interwoven fabric of literary history. or the adoption of a style. An early 20th century example of intertextuality which influenced later postmodernists is “Pierre Menard. Author of the Quixote” by Jorge Luis Borges. Derek Pell relies on collage and noir detective. fairy tales. westerns. and many other – or in references to popular genres such as sci-fi and detective fiction. Often intertextuality is more complicated than a single reference to another text. a wide variety of well-known. songs. links Pinocchio to Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. erotica. Intertextuality in postmodern literature can be a reference or parallel to another literary work. obscure and fictional cultures and concepts. Pastiche can also refer to compositional technique. Preety Chaudhary
Intertextuality Since postmodernism represents a decentered concept of the universe in which individual works are not isolated creations.194
Ramen Sharma and Dr. Robert Coover’s Pinocchio in Venice. many other elements are also included (metafiction and temporal distortion are common in the broader pastiche of the postmodern novel). Arthur Conan Doyle. multiple elements. In Robert Coover's 1977 novel The Public Burning. pastiche means to combine. Umberto Eco uses detective fiction. well-known. William S. Burroughs uses science fiction. Donald Barthelme. Also. In postmodern literature this commonly manifests as references to fairy tales – as in works by Margaret Atwood. for example. Thomas Pynchon includes in his novels elements from detective fiction. travel guides. an extended discussion of a work. Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose takes on the form of a detective novel and makes references to authors such as Aristotle. for example the cut-up technique employed by Burroughs. Critics point to this as an indication of postmodernism’s lack of originality and reliance on clichés. Though pastiche commonly refers to the mixing of genres. Another example of intertextuality in postmodernism is John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor which deals with Ebenezer Cooke’s poem of the same name. and how-to manuals. a story with significant references to Don Quixote which is also a good example of intertextuality with its references to Medieval romances. and science fiction. It can be seen as a representation of the chaotic. obscure. or information-drenched aspects of postmodern society. and fictional history mixed together. and so on. For example.[12][13][14] Pastiche Related to postmodern intertextuality. pluralistic. or "paste" together. Don Quixote is a common reference with postmodernists. science fiction. real contemporary and historical figures (Mickey Rooney and Wernher von Braun for example). and war fiction. Coover mixes historically inaccurate accounts of Richard Nixon interacting with historical figures and fictional characters such as Uncle Sam and Betty Crocker. detective fiction.

"product") is a term coined by Alastair Fowler to refer to a specific type of metafiction in which the story is about the process of creation. would be unbelievable and heroic. It is often employed to undermine the authority of the author. though O'Brien was a Vietnam veteran. Factual retellings of war stories. Fabulation Fabulation is a term sometimes used interchangeably with metafiction and relates to pastiche and Magic Realism. or elements from popular genres such as science fiction. such as magic and myth. Similarly. for unexpected narrative shifts. the term was coined by Robert Scholes in his book The Fabulators. A significant
. Vonnegut continually points out the artificiality of the central narrative arc which contains obviously fictional elements such as aliens and time travel. about one platoon's experiences during the Vietnam War. or to comment on the act of storytelling. including fantastical elements. S."[18] In many cases. Johnson's 1969 novel The Unfortunates. the narrator says.[17] Poioumena Poioumenon (plural: poioumena. One story in the book. for example—and integrates other traditional notions of storytelling. fabulation challenges some traditional notions of literature—the traditional structure of a novel or role of the narrator. By some accounts. "the poioumenon is calculated to offer opportunities to explore the boundaries of fiction and reality—the limits of narrative truth. from Ancient Greek: ποιούμενον. Italo Calvino's 1979 novel If on a winter's night a traveler is about a reader attempting to read a novel of the same name.Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern Literature
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example is B. making the artificiality of art or the fictionality of fiction apparent to the reader and generally disregards the necessity for "willful suspension of disbelief". questions the nature of telling stories. For example. A good example of fabulation is Salman Rushdie´s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. According to Fowler. to advance a story in a unique way. "How to Tell a True War Story". Kurt Vonnegut also commonly used this technique: the first chapter of his 1969 novel SlaughterhouseFive is about the process of writing the novel and calls attention to his own presence throughout the novel. Thus. Though much of the novel has to do with Vonnegut's own experiences during the firebombing of Dresden. the book is a work of fiction and O'Brien calls into question the fictionality of the characters and incidents through out the book. Common examples of this Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy which is about the narrator's frustrated attempt to tell his own story. Tim O'Brien's 1990 novel/story collection The Things They Carried.[1][15][16] Metafiction Metafiction is essentially writing about writing or "foregrounding the apparatus". moral war stories don't capture the truth. the book will be about the process of creating the book or includes a central metaphor for this process. for emotional distance. it was released in a box with no binding so that readers could assemble it however they chose. It is a rejection of realism which embraces the notion that literature is a created work and not bound by notions of mimesis and verisimilitude. features a character named Tim O'Brien.

Henry Ford. Historiographic metafiction (see above) is an example of this. Kinbote. Doctorow (which features such historical figures as Harry Houdini. Sigmund Freud.[14][18][19][20][21] Historiographic metafiction Linda Hutcheon coined the term "historiographic metafiction" to refer to works that fictionalize actual historical events or figures. Preety Chaudhary
postmodern example is Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire. The themes and subjects are often imaginary. In regards to critical theory. John Fowles deals similarly with the Victorian Period in The French Lieutenant's Woman. somewhat outlandish and fantastic and with a certain dream-like quality. or bifurcate into multiple possibilities. Washington. Similarly. the author presents multiple possible events occurring simultaneously—in one section the babysitter is murdered while in another section nothing happens and so on—yet no version of the story is favored as the correct version. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. repeat.[1] Temporal distortion This is a common technique in modernist fiction: fragmentation and non-linear narratives are central features in both modern and postmodern literature. the most famous of which is perhaps Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five becoming "unstuck in time". notable examples include The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez (about Simón Bolívar). claims he is writing an analysis of John Shade's long poem "Pale Fire". and Gilbert Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew. in which the narrator. sharply defined. a scene featuring George Washington smoking marijuana is included. Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook. smoothly painted images of figures and objects depicted in a surrealistic manner. Thomas Pynchon's Mason and Dixon also employs this concept. in Robert Coover's "The Babysitter" from Pricksongs & Descants. John Fowles's Mantissa.196
Ramen Sharma and Dr. the self-conscious narrator in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children parallels the creation of his book to the creation of chutney and the creation of independent India. often for the sake of irony. Ishmael Reed deals playfully with anachronisms. this technique can be related to The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes. For example. Time may also overlap. Abraham Lincoln using a telephone for example. Carl Jung). Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (about Gustave Flaubert). but the narrative of the relationship between Shade and Kinbote is presented in what is ostensibly the footnotes to the poem. William Golding's Paper Men. for example. Temporal distortion in postmodern fiction is used in a variety of ways. L. Ragtime by E.[1] Magic realism Literary work marked by the use of still. Other postmodern examples of poioumena include Samuel Beckett's trilogy (Molloy. and Rabih Alameddine's Koolaids: The Art of War which makes references to the Lebanese Civil War and various real life political figures. Booker T. skillful time shifts. In Flight to Canada. Distortions in time are central features in many of Kurt Vonnegut's non-linear novels. Malone Dies and The Unnamable).
. Some of the characteristic features of this kind of fiction are the mingling and juxtaposition of the realistic and the fantastic or bizarre.

myths and fairy stories. Neal Stephenson. hyperreal information bombardment. the sprawling canvas and fragmented narrative of such writers as Dave Eggers has generated controversy on the "purpose" of a novel as narrative and the standards by which it should be judged. Technoculture and hyperreality Fredric Jameson called postmodernism the "cultural logic of late capitalism". miscellaneous use of dreams. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon has many possible interpretations. and clichés. Postmodernists such as Salman Rushdie and Italo Calvino commonly use Magic Realism in their work.[23][24][25] Steampunk. arcane erudition. The cyberpunk fiction of William Gibson. and a focus on technoculture with its mix of futuristic technology and Victorian culture. product brand names. technology has become a central focus in many lives. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Marquez is also regarded as a notable exponent of this kind of fiction – especially his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. regarded by many as the first work of magic realism.[26] This often coincides with the theme of technoculture and hyperreality. Many works of fiction have dealt with this aspect of postmodernity with characteristic irony and pastiche. and many others use science fiction techniques to address this postmodern. Don DeLillo's White Noise presents characters who are bombarded with a "white noise" of television. "Late capitalism" implies that society has moved past the industrial age and into the information age. demonstrates postmodern pastiche. expressionistic and even surrealistic description. the horrific and the inexplicable. for instance. the belief that there's an ordering system behind the chaos of the world is another recurring postmodern theme. For the postmodernist. For example. In postmodernity people are inundated with information. in Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut.[1][14] A fusion of fabulism with magic realism is apparent in such early 21st century American short stories as Kevin Brockmeier's "The Ceiling". the character Dwayne Hoover becomes violent when he's convinced that everyone else in the world is a robot and he is the only human. the Argentinian who in 1935 published his Historia universal de la infamia. The Cuban Alejo Carpentier is another described as a "magic realist". the sense of paranoia. temporal distortion. to the work of Jorge Luis Borges. a subgenre of science fiction popularized in novels and comics by such writers as Alan Moore and James Blaylock. It has been applied.Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern Literature
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convoluted and even labyrinthine narratives and plots. and our understanding of the real is mediated by simulations of the real. The postmodern position is that the style of a novel must be appropriate to what it depicts and represents. the element of surprise or abrupt shock. Likewise. no ordering system exists.[1] Maximalism Dubbed maximalism by some critics. and
. Paranoia Perhaps demonstrated most famously and effectively in Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and the work of Thomas Pynchon. Jean Baudrillard claimed postmodernity was defined by a shift into hyperreality in which simulations have replaced the real. For example. so a search for order is fruitless and absurd.

"Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor. 2001. [4] David. specific by economy with words. the short stories are "slice of life" stories. sterile and filled with language play for its own sake. Instead of providing every minute detail. adverbs.
References
[1] Oruch. the opposite of maximalism. Mandela clearly found his Victorian ethic of self-mastery" [6] Beebe.pdf [3] Thomas Weber. 2004. Oxford University Press. attack the maximalist novel as being disorganized. the author provides a general context and then allows the reader's imagination to shape the story. Preety Chaudhary
points back to such examples in previous ages as Gargantua by François Rabelais and the Odyssey of Homer. Jack B. Many modernist critics. 113-130 [10] Caxton's Chaucer . London: Penguin Books (Word 4 word: the voices survey \ BBC)." Colfa. Among those categorized as postmodernist. and Spring in February. Oruch's survey of the literature finds no association between Valentine and romance prior to Chaucer.R.Caxton's English
. [8] Elmes. Minimalist authors hesitate to use adjectives. Susan Sellers. Yet there are counter-examples. or meaningless details.org/JWMS/SP94. Chaucer. 28–29. 56 (1981): 534–65.morrissociety. notably B. pp. James Joyce Quarterly (University of Tulsa) 10 (1): p. By Sue Roe. empty of emotional commitment—and therefore empty of value as a novel. "St. Maurice (Fall 1972). [5] Elleke Boehmer (2008). Ellis. Simon (2005) Talking for Britain: a journey through the nation's dialects . Steve (New York: Oxford University Press. He concludes that Chaucer is likely to be "the original mythmaker in this instance. Generally." Speculum. Stephen (2005) “Literacy and Literary Production” in Chaucer: an Oxford guide. "Ulysses and the Age of Modernism". 2000. Minimalism. taken on its own. which Nancy Felson hails as the exemplar of the polytropic audience and its engagement with a work. Deirdre The Cambridge companion to the Victorian novel p. 157. p.edu [2] http://www. literary minimalism is most commonly associated with Samuel Beckett.Nichols.198
Ramen Sharma and Dr.179. Cambridge University Press.10. pp. Cambridge University Press. such as Pynchon's Mason & Dixon and Minimalism Literary minimalism can be characterized as a focus on a surface description where readers are expected to take an active role in the creation of a story.." Cambridge University Press. 176. Myers in his polemic A Reader's Manifesto.utsa. is a representation of only the most basic and necessary pieces. ed. [9] Penn. 2005).219. "'Invictus'. p.4. Nelson Mandela: a very short introduction. The characters in minimalist stories and novels tend to be unexceptional. [7] The Cambridge companion to Virginia Woolf. 2008. Valentine.